Making My Home a Little Smart

Smartphone, Smart TV, Smart bulb, Smart socket etc. basically, any electrical thing be it big appliances or a simple bulb can have the "Smart" counterpart nowadays. WE ARE INDEED IN THE SMART ERA, era of automation and touch-to-switch where I am a big fan of. I really like the idea of it and because of that, I started my journey in turning my things to "smart".

I started with my basic TV back in 2012 when I was still living with my parents. Smart TV is not that popular here in the Philippines back then but it's soaring in other countries. I don't want to buy a new TV, mine is still working and the Smart TVs back then, for me, doesn't have great features so far, it's still pretty basic so instead, I bought an Android Box. The MXIII Smart TV Box makes your dumb TV into a Smart TV. You just need an extra power socket to plug it in then connect it to your TV via HDMI and you now have yourself a Smart TV with Android OS, just like what you have on your android phones but for TV. I used it until I left my parents house to live with my wife. That's the only "Smart" thing I invested so far.

Now that I no longer live with my parents, I can now start investing more with my vice (HAHAHA). My house, my rules! I bought a new TV, still basic, but I upgrade my android box to the latest one, Xiaomi Mi Box and I'm using it until now. In addition to that, I bought a Smart bulb and a Smart socket which I will feature for my post today.

x360ce - Transform D-Input Controllers to X-Input

So you got yourself a cheap wireless generic controller like the iPega PG-9099. Using it with your android phone is superb and hassle free but when you use it to play your favorite PC Games, the buttons are a mess. X is not X, Y is  A, Left stick is R2 etc., it's useless! Or is it?

As I have said in my previous post about the iPega Controller, controllers has 2 modes, D-Input mode and X-Input mode. The BT Connection > Windows of iPega controllers are D-Input mode and most latest games only support X-Input mode. What am I saying? Let's define the two modes first.

According to Wikipedia:

DirectInput (D-Input) is a legacy Microsoft API for collecting input from a computer user, via input devices such as the mouse, keyboard, or a gamepad. It also provides a system for action mapping, which allows the user to assign specific actions within a game to the buttons and axes of the input devices. Additionally it handles haptic feedback (input/output) devices. Wikipedia

Whereas;

Generic Controller U Say? Try iPega Wolverine BT Controller

First post! Well if you take a look at the date of this post, you would understand why I started blogging :D.

I'm a casual gamer (or avid?) I don't know how I would categorize my self now but there is no day that I will not play whether it mobile games or PC games for a couple of hours. I even invested in upgrading my PC to meet the requirements of the AAA games available in line with my genre. I personally like FPS games but due to some condition, I can't play them now (I get nauseous whenever I play one even for just 5 minutes) so I started playing games that are in third-person view, GTA, AC etc. and I'm hooked again.

Playing is fun, but not when it's humid and hot. Since our room with AC is just 5 steps away and with TV that is only On when we watch movies, I ran an HDMI cable from my CPU to the TV and voila, I have an instant gaming console. I didn't want to bring my KB & mouse nor buy new set instead, I bought a Generic Controller, the iPega PG-9099 for Php. 747 + Shipping here: